Sinn Fein accuses AAA of weakening broad-left prospects

SINN FEIN has clashed with the Anti-Austerity Alliance over its refusal to sign up to Right2Change (R2C), a platform of left-wing policies.

Pearse Doherty, the Sinn Fein finance spokesman, said AAA’s decision not to sign up didn’t help create the impression that a broad-left alternative government was possible.

He also claimed that the party’s abstention had weakened AAA’s alliance with Richard Boyd Barrett’s People Before Profit (PBP) group.

“It is disappointing that they have stayed out of it... but they are a party that is on 2%,” Doherty said. “PBP is faring better in polls as a result. I believe some of that is because of their willingness to work with other parties of the left.”

Paul Murphy, the AAA TD for Dublin South West, dismissed the charge, and said that, as AAA and PBP had been treated as a single entity by the main polling companies for several months,